A January 17, 2009 story in the Los Angeles Times by Evan Halper and Patrick McGreevy is headlined “California controller to suspend tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants.” It tells the story of California’s ongoing financial crisis, brought on by years of liberal and Democratic dominance in California politics. But more importantly, it provides a chilling glimpse of what is in store for the people of America if Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi are permitted to impose their ideal of what America is all about from their respective perches in Washington.

According to the Times, State Controller John Chiang said he had “no choice but to stop making some $3.7 billion in payments in the absence of action by the governor and lawmakers to close the state’s nearly $42 billion budget deficit. More than half of those payments are tax refunds.” The state expects to be $346 million short of funds in the month of February, and by March the state could find itself totally insolvent.

The controller anticipates that the suspended payments could be “rolled into IOUs” if California still lacks the cash to pay its bills by March or April. In a most unfortunate choice of words, the Controller said that it pained him to “pull this trigger,” but that it was a “critically necessary” action. California officials have already designed an “IOU template” and are now negotiating with banks to determine whether taxpayers, students, and welfare recipients would be allowed to cash or deposit them, if and when they’re issued.

Just ask yourself… Who but a bunch of liberal Democrats would even dream that banks would exchange cash for a worthless piece of paper that is backed by… nothing? If you think that’s a good idea, you might also think it would be a good idea to elect a young, inexperienced, radical leftist of questionable citizenship as President of the United States.

The Times tells us that, “The payments to be frozen include nearly $2 billion in tax refunds; $300 million in cash grants for needy families, blind, and disabled; and $13 million in grants for college students.” The state will continue to pay more than $6.6 billion in school and healthcare bills.

In the face if this looming disaster, the governor is asking for tax increases, spending cuts, the relaxation of some environmental regulations, and legislation to allow private companies to do some government construction. The governor has ordered non-essential state employees to take two days off each month… without pay… and most state offices, including the Department of Motor Vehicles, is to close on those two days.

(If you’ve never lived in California and have never visited a DMV office to acquire a drivers license or car tags, you have no idea what that means.)

According to the Times, the state has also stopped payment of bond money covering more than 5,300 public works projects in progress. 276 of those projects have been exempted because they are nearly complete and the cost of shutting them down would be greater than the cost to finish them. In the meantime, contractors are warning of the unintended consequences of stemming the flow of public works funds, suggesting that such action would be taken at significant cost.

Caltrans Director Will Kempton estimates that the state would incur an estimated $350 million in legal costs, breach-of-contract claims, and expenses for securing dormant construction sites.

To say that California is a state teetering on the brink of anarchy would be an understatement. What happens when welfare checks and student aid funds are cut off and public works projects are suspended? Democrats in Sacramento will almost certainly find a way to ram tax increases through the legislature and the governor, threatened with another kind of "cutoff" by his liberal Democrat wife, will sign them into law.

But tax increases are exactly the wrong prescription. As corporate taxes increase, businessmen across the state will react.  Some will lay off workers, increasing the ranks of the unemployed, while others will simply close their doors and announce a move to Arizona, Texas or Oklahoma.  College students from San Diego to Sacramento will stage violent protests, shutting down most colleges and universities and overtaxing police and National Guard forces. 

Taxpayers due refunds and public works contractors demanding payment for work already accomplished will clog the courts with lawsuits. California will become the first state in the nation to experience a shortage of lawyers.  Public employees, forced to take 10% pay cuts will go on strike, bringing all state services to a halt, while the state's most powerful newspapers and TV stations... including Obama propaganda organs such as the LA Times and the San Francisco Chronicle... will close their doors forever. 

But the worst fear of all is that welfare recipients, including two or three million illegal aliens, will create massive insurrection, looking for food wherever they can find it.  In the early days they'll savage the close-in communities of the rich and famous… Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Bel Air… before moving up the coast to Malibu. Many of Barack Obama's wealthiest and most prominent supporters... Rob Reiner, George Clooney, Richard Dreyfuss, and Bill Mahre among them... will likely escape inland as other Obama supporters, the not-so-prominent have-nots, pillage their opulent estates for food and anything else of value.

The most sought after prizes will be the Bentleys, the Rolls-Royces, the Maseratis, and the Ferraris that illegal aliens will need to make their way back to the peace and quiet and the relative economic security of their native Mexico.     

It promises to be a repeat of the Watts riots and the Rodney King riots in South Central Los Angeles, but with statewide implications. The insurrection, if it comes, will be so widespread and so violent that local and state police and the National Guard will simply look the other way… choosing instead to remain in the relative safety of the college campuses.

State officials will likely demand a bailout from Washington. But California, with roughly 12% of the U.S. population is not about to get a large enough share of the current economic stimulus funds earmarked for state aid ($160 billion) to solve its problem. Lawmakers from other hard-pressed states will not be too sympathetic to California’s pleas.

It is Mad Max in double time.  It is exactly what is predictable when liberals and Democrats are allowed to tax, spend, and set public policy, undeterred by common sense and true American values.  For those Americans who thought it was a good idea to elect Barack Obama and to give Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi strong majorities in Congress, you might want take your eyes off the bread-and-circuses in Washington and focus your attention on California.

Those white liberals and moderates in California who thought they were accumulating points in the black community by voting for Barack Obama will soon find that, when anarchy reigns, anarchists don’t often stop to ask how you voted in the last election.